Most companies write an accommodation policy about a fortnight after the incident that proved they needed one. Somebody booked something nobody would have approved, or nobody booked anything at all, or a crew spent six weeks somewhere that was quietly awful and only said so at the end.
It does not need to be a long document. A single well-written page that answers who approves, what standard applies, how it gets booked and who to ring when something breaks will do more work than twelve pages of procurement language nobody opens.
This is what to put in it, what people usually leave out, and what to keep out on purpose. It is not legal advice: employment and health and safety duties depend on your situation, and if you need to know where yours sit, ask somebody qualified.
Why a policy beats deciding each time
The argument for writing it down is not tidiness. It is that six recurring problems stop being problems.
- The same decision stops being argued from scratch every time somebody needs to go somewhere.
- Finance knows what to expect before the invoice arrives rather than after.
- The person travelling knows what they are entitled to ask for, instead of guessing and feeling awkward.
- Whoever books it has cover for saying no, which is the thing people most often lack.
- When something goes wrong at eight in the evening, there is an agreed answer to who does what.
- A new starter can arrange a stay correctly in their first month without a briefing.
The sections worth having
Ten sections. Most of them are two or three sentences. If yours runs longer than a couple of pages, something in it is decoration.
Scope: who and what this covers
Employees, contractors, agency staff, candidates at interview, and anybody travelling on the company's behalf. Say which of those are in and which are not, because the gap is always the one that causes the argument.
Standards by length of stay
The single most useful section, and the one most policies leave out. A night or two and a room is fine. Past about a week, say what accommodation must have: cooking facilities, laundry, and somewhere to sit that is not the bedroom. Past a month, treat it as somebody living there.
Who approves it, and at what point
Name a role rather than a person, and set a threshold that triggers a second signature. Then say how long approval should take, because a policy that needs three days of sign-off for a Monday start is a policy people work around.
How it gets booked
One route, named. Whether that is a supplier, a booking tool or a person, the point is that it is not "whoever finds something". Say what happens out of hours and at weekends, since that is when the awkward ones land.
Budget, and how it flexes
Set your own figures rather than borrowing anybody else's: costs vary by town, by season and by how long the stay is. What matters is that the number is written down, that it differs by length of stay, and that there is a stated way to exceed it rather than a quiet habit of doing so.
Extensions and cancellations
Dates move on most projects, so a policy that assumes they will not is already wrong. Say who raises an extension, how much notice is expected, and who carries the cost if a booking is cancelled late.
Sharing
State plainly whether people may be asked to share, and equally plainly that they may decline. Ambiguity here is what turns a cost decision into a grievance.
Welfare and contact during the stay
Who checks in with the person, and when. Who they ring when something is wrong, both in hours and out of them. It takes two lines and it is the part people actually use.
Invoicing and expenses
Whether the company is invoiced directly or the traveller pays and claims. Direct invoicing is almost always better for morale and for reconciliation. Say where a purchase order number goes and what the payment terms are.
Escalation when it goes wrong
Three names and a route. Most of the value of a policy is that at nine at night on a Sunday, nobody has to invent one.
The standards-by-length section is the one that changes behaviour. Everything else is administration; that one decides what the stay is actually like. There is more on it in employee welfare when people work away.
What people leave out, and what to keep out
Two lists that are worth reading side by side, because the mistakes run in both directions.
Usually missing, worth adding
- Parking, and specifically what kind of vehicle. A policy that says "parking where required" has said nothing useful to anybody with a van.
- What happens when a stay is extended past the point the original approval covered.
- Whether family may visit at weekends on a long stay, which comes up more than people expect.
- Accessibility requirements, asked routinely rather than only when somebody raises them.
Best kept out
- A single named supplier written into the policy itself. Suppliers change; policies should outlast them.
- A rate card baked into the document, which will be out of date within a year and then routinely ignored.
- Rules so tight that the only way to book a genuinely urgent stay is to break them.
- A form nobody can find. If the process is not linked from the policy, the process is folklore.
The one-page version
If you write nothing else, write answers to these ten. Ten lines is a policy; the rest is elaboration.
- Who this covers, and who it does not.
- What accommodation must have, by length of stay.
- Who approves, above what threshold, and how quickly.
- How it gets booked, including out of hours.
- The budget, and the stated way to exceed it.
- How extensions and cancellations are handled.
- Whether sharing may be asked for, and that it may be declined.
- Who the person staying contacts when something is wrong.
- How it is invoiced, and where the purchase order number goes.
- Who to escalate to, by role, with a route that works at the weekend.
Item six is the one that ages worst if it is left vague. Handling accommodation extensions covers what a good answer to it looks like.
Common questions
Do we really need a written accommodation policy?
If people go away more than occasionally, yes, though it does not need to be long. A single page that answers who approves, what standard applies, how it gets booked and who to ring when something breaks will remove most of the recurring arguments. The test is simple: could somebody who joined last month arrange a three week stay correctly without asking anybody? If not, the policy is doing no work.
What should the budget be?
Set your own, from your own recent bookings, and review it. Costs vary by town, by season, by how many people are travelling and by how long the stay runs, so any figure quoted in an article would be wrong for most readers most of the time. What matters more than the number is that it differs by length of stay and that exceeding it has a stated route rather than being a quiet habit.
Should the policy name a preferred supplier?
Name the booking route, not the supplier. Say that accommodation is arranged through a named role or a named process, and keep the actual supplier list somewhere that can be updated without reissuing the policy. Suppliers change, and a policy that has to be reapproved every time one does is a policy that stops being maintained.
How often should it be reviewed?
Once a year is plenty for the document, but the useful review is the informal one: after any stay that went badly, ask which line of the policy would have prevented it, and add that line. Policies written from real incidents are much better than policies written from templates.
Is this legal advice?
No. This is a practical guide to what a useful accommodation policy contains, based on arranging stays for companies, not legal guidance. Employment and health and safety duties depend on your situation, so if you need to know where your obligations sit, ask somebody qualified to tell you.
In short
Write one page, not twelve. Set the standard by length of stay, name the booking route rather than the supplier, put your own budget in it, and say what happens when the dates move. Then add a line every time something goes wrong that the policy did not cover.
If you want to see how one supplier answers the questions a policy asks, our FAQs cover coverage, invoicing, extensions and support, and how it works sets out the process end to end.
Writing one, or fixing the one you have?
If it would help to talk it through with somebody who arranges these stays for a living, we are happy to. No obligation and no pitch.
Or send us a live requirement and we will tell you what we can do for your actual dates.